


I Could Never Forget

by SecretlyADog



Series: The Call [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Death, Grieving, M/M, angst: the fic, nines is v sad, this is literally just angst, vomit (kinda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:07:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23510572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretlyADog/pseuds/SecretlyADog
Summary: Caleb is inconsolable.
Relationships: Connor/Upgraded Connor | RK900
Series: The Call [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1691638
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	I Could Never Forget

**Author's Note:**

> old but gold  
> wrote this a year ago, woo  
> Fun fact, Nines is an idiot and is awful at moving on  
> Also read the first fic in this series for this to make any sense :^)

It was only after Caleb had sat against the wall in the middle of the hallway for several hours, doing nothing but mourning and unsettling the human employees that one of the people in charge of overseeing him told him to go home; he could have a day or so to himself and he was to get himself together in that time.

Caleb wasn’t sure what they expected. Get himself together? Pretend he didn’t feel broken? Pretend that  _ the only reason he was still in this godforsaken building in the first place wasn't because of  _ **_him?_ **

Nines should’ve gone with the other RK800 when he had the chance, and yet… he couldn’t abandon  _ him _ . What if Cyberlife brought him back? Surely they could see what this was doing to Nines? 

That was why Nines had only been able to guarantee to that other android that he’d  _ try. _ He’d do his best to let any fellow deviants go and sabotage Cyberlife’s efforts, but… he couldn’t join them. At least, not yet.

Caleb cleared his throat as he entered their practically shared “apartment” and tried to keep the sadness from producing a physical reaction. He could already feel his throat tightening and in response he cursed his own deviancy. He hated it when his negative emotions crippled him, and yet… he wouldn’t trade his feelings for the world. He’d been  _ in love _ with Connor, and it was scary and beautiful and  _ perfect _ . And now… now he was gone. And Nines was torn between scrubbing away the thirium he could’ve sworn he still felt on his skin or clinging to it, desperate to hold on to anything that reminded him of his…

But the thirium had been gone for hours. Several scans confirmed this; there were no traces left, and it made Caleb feel equal parts relieved and sick. Though, that meant there was nothing to lose from a shower.

With the building being full of androids, the water bill Cyberlife had to pay wasn’t nearly as bad as it would’ve been if they were all humans. Nines was about to change that with how long he stayed under the previously hot spray. Cold water never bothered him as much as it bothered others; he allowed it to cool his skin, eventually lowering his internal temperature by a degree or two. To Nines’ dismay, it did nothing to slow the thoughts of his-... of Connor’s body in his arms, watching the RK800 glance at the timer in his vision telling him that his life was coming to an end and holding him tightly until it happened; until his body slumped over, going just a little limp as he shut down permanently and a sob ripped free from Caleb. 

Instinctively, Nines wiped at his eyes as he came out of the memory. Of course there was water there, he was in the  _ shower _ . There was nothing more to it. The stuttering in his chest was just that; stuttering caused by an emotional response. It wasn’t a sob,  _ Nines wasn’t crying.  _

Perhaps he could afford to stay in there just a little longer. His system informed him that it had been three hours since he’d gotten in, but he wasn’t ready to leave. Just… five more minutes.

It took almost twenty for the stuttering in his chest to stop so he could leave the shower. Caleb pulled on a pair of sweatpants and nothing more; he wasn’t about to go anywhere any time soon, and he was too tired to put on anything else.

Caleb sat on  his side of- the edge of their bed and once again attempted to compose himself. He tried to bring out the machine in him, ignore his feelings in favor of being focused enough that he could go on a mission for Cyberlife, but…

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw their dresser. It was full of clothes, sure, but there were two top drawers where they kept their personal belongings. They didn’t have a habit of going through each other’s drawer - almost avoided it, in fact - but... 

Caleb stood and stumbled his way over, taking a deep breath before he pulled it open.

There were a couple of things in Connor’s drawer; a few pictures, a few quarters Nines had given him, a… a…

Nines’ heart stopped.

A ring box.

Surely that wasn’t… no…

When Nines opened the box, his heart and stomach dropped in unison as the ring glinted in the dull light of the room. It was a simple band with a blue gem in the center that fit perfectly in a square frame. Excitement welled, unbidden, in his chest before it fizzled out as the realization came crashing down on him again. Connor was going to propose, most likely tomorrow. 

And now he couldn’t. Now he was gone.

Nines did his best to gently set the ring box back down in the drawer before he was rushing to his sink. Cleaning solution for his mouth and just a bit of thirium came up as the nausea kicked him in the stomach. At some point, his retching turned into sobs and he struggled to clean out the sink so he could move over to the toilet. It was stupid - illogical, really - to give an android a toilet, but at this moment Nines was infinitely grateful that they had one. He could collapse against it, use it to hold his weight and press his face against the cold lid as he brought his stress levels low enough so that his body wouldn’t produce such a violent reaction to his emotions again.

Nines must’ve remained there with his eyes closed for fifteen minutes, nearly motionless except to throw up one more time when his thoughts had wandered. 

Finally, after wondering half-heartedly if he needed to clean his mouth out when all that came up was cleaning solution, Nines made his way back over to the drawer. He avoided putting the ring on his left hand, carefully avoided even thinking about it. Instead, he opened his drawer and took out the two dog tags he had, one of which fittingly had “Connor ♡” engraved on it. He unclasped the chain they were held on and slipped the ring onto it before placing the dog tags around his neck.

Caleb went over to  their his bed and flopped carelessly down on it, staring up at the  boring, unimportant,  _ never had to do this when Connor was here _ ceiling as he played with the ring idly between his fingers. Sleep usually came easy to Nines; when he was laying in bed with Connor, pulling him close and gently planting a kiss on top of his head, he could feel his systems dragging him into a relaxed stasis. Now that… Connor wasn’t there, he felt the ever-present nausea curling in his abdomen, promising more terrible things if he so much as briefly touched upon the wrong memory.

Nines laid there for hours. The bed was too empty and his thoughts were too turbulent, never settling on one thing for too long lest he start crying again. Bouncing from thought to thought, memory to memory, it didn’t  _ calm _ him but it also didn’t allow the bad feelings to settle, didn’t allow them the time to weigh down his bones because they were ever-changing. The cool metal between his fingers was grounding him if only a little, but when he felt the burn of unshed tears and saw his view of the ceiling blur before him, he did what Cyberlife told him to only do in extreme emergencies. 

Nines forced a shut down.

~ ~ ~

Inducing sleep mode like this was something that only idiots did if they wanted to potentially fuck up their processes and generally hurt themselves, and maybe Nines wanted both of those things. It was hard for him to tell at this point. Either way, now he was sleeping and hopefully he could escape his-

_ Connor was smiling up at him in their kitchen, very much alive and well, and Nines bent down to place a sweet, chaste kiss on his lips before they made their way over to the door. For a second, Connor stopped to unnecessarily adjust Nines’s tie and Nines’s attention was immediately stolen by the ring on Connor’s left hand. Married? They were… they were married. Like they should be. This… this felt right. This was where they were meant to be. _

_ Connor had placed his hand on the door handle and just before he pushed it open, Caleb gently put his hands on either side of his face and gave him another kiss; sweet, soft, and long. Caleb couldn’t explain why he felt the need to kiss Connor so much, all he knew was that he wanted to.  _

_ The kiss had begun escalating and before either of them could take it too far, to the point where they’d be late for work, they both pulled away. Connor looked just a little dazed and Nines imagined that he didn’t look much better off. _

_ “I love you,” Caleb said, letting the adoration leak into his voice. _

_ Connor’s expression softened as he said “I love you too.” _

_ And then they were stepping out of their house and blue splattered on the ground; a bullet struck Connor, just shy of hitting his thirium pump dead-on, and Nines caught him just before he hit the ground and they weren’t at their house anymore, they were on the floor of an abandoned apartment building and Nines’s eyes could only focus on Connor, on the fear in his eyes and the blood on his clothes and Nines was panicking, he couldn’t handle this, he couldn’t- _

“NO!” Caleb shot up into a sitting position, his dog tags clinking against the ring in the otherwise silent room, and Caleb was shaking and hugging himself, desperate to hold himself together. His throat was tightening again as he sobbed and he had to fumble his way back to the toilet, once again grateful that the bathroom was so close to the bed. This bout of throwing up lasted much longer than the first one, but eventually he’d calmed it down to sobs again as his forehead pressed against the lid.

It took him a moment to realize that the odd murmuring in the nearly black room was him saying “Not again” over and over, a few “please”s thrown in there. The only source of light came from his dark red LED; the vague reflection of light off the pristine white bathroom was spinning. Would this ever get easier? Even a little? Nines was beginning to think it wouldn’t.

As the tears streaked down his cheeks, Nines let out a soft, barely-there humorless chuckle. Maybe he should just sleep in the bathroom. At least that way if he had to throw up because of nightmares he’d be right there, and he wouldn’t be thinking about how there should be a body beside him, how he should be cuddling with Connor and getting warm and-

Nines closed his eyes and did his best to stop thinking about it. The coolness on his skin helped, if only a little - it soothed him, lulled him into a more calm state. It was a sharp contrast to how he normally slept and somehow that was helping. Caleb let himself relax more against it and slipped into a naturally induced sleep cycle.


End file.
